Had Pearl Jam played Thursday’s Madison Square Garden concert at a smaller hall, the band’s energy — and the dynamic stage presence of frontman Eddie Vedder — might have saved the day. But they played the arena as if it were a club — and the fans who filled the Garden paid the price.

First, there was no video projection system. From the back wall of the Garden to the lip of the stage, it’s almost a quarter-mile, so the majority of the audience was denied any real visual detail. Did Vedder contort his kisser into the ugly face when he sang “Severed Hand” early in the set? You’d have to ask somebody who sat up front; even the eagle-eyed would have a hard time confirming it was actually Vedder up there.

The band’s sound system was another problem. The acoustics weren’t just a little muddy, they were the Mississippi. Lyrics were mostly indiscernible during the set, which ran for more than 30 songs.

It wasn’t so bad on tunes such as “Jeremy” and “Leash,” two of the band’s best-known numbers. On those, what we couldn’t hear with our ears we heard in our heads. But on the less familiar, deep-vault cuts, Vedder’s lyrics were little more than garbled jibber-jabber, more noise than poetry.

Other than the shirtless, drunk, fat guy in my far-back section who broke a seat by jumping on it, the fan reaction cooled the farther you were from the stage.

The exceptions came during the night’s two brightest songs: a cover of The Who’s “Love Reign O’er Me” and Pearl Jam’s own anthem “Alive,” which was played in the show’s last breaths. These two songs illustrated why Pearl Jam still matters — but for the most part, Pearl Jam and Vedder coulda been better.